气候变化领域集成服务门户

He applied to Ørsted for compensation for his loss, which he valued at $3,900 and an independent consultant put at $1,800. Under Ørsted’s procedures, three people review fishermen’s claims: Two are Ørsted employees, and the third is a paid consultant for the company.

Ørsted concluded that its survey vessels were not at fault. On one occasion, the panel said, Ørsted’s vessel came no closer than half a mile from Damm’s traps. The other survey vessel followed the same track as Damm’s trawl, but equipment that could have snagged his gear wasn’t deployed. Ørsted also said other fishing vessels traveled near or over Damm’s gear.

Damm was never compensated and had to pay for new lobster pots. “I’m not going to lose sleep over it,” he said. “But if they do it now, they’re just going to keep doing it to someone else.”

Ørsted spokesperson Meaghan Wims said that the company does not comment on individual claims. It has received “very few claims for lost or damaged gear,” she said.

While the federal government has required oil and natural gas companies to compensate fishermen for damages for decades, BOEM lacks regulatory authority to do the same for damages from offshore wind projects. It has signaled off and on since 2014 that it will consider offering guidelines for compensation, but they have yet to be officially released.

A working group convened by BOEM early in 2022 discussed how to quantify economic losses for fishermen from offshore wind development. Notes of early meetings, obtained through a public records request, warned that habitat losses “would have direct impact on fishing.” But after BOEM’s lead biologist recommended toning down the language, the group’s final report said that offshore wind development “could” impact commercial fishermen and their revenue.

Last August, the New Bedford Port Authority wrote to BOEM, challenging what it described as “equivocal” language in the draft guidelines: “There is not one single entity, including BOEM, that reasonably thinks that such payments will not be necessary, so why is BOEM still using uncertain language in that instance?

“We strongly believe that the ‘burden of proof’ must lie with developers to prove to the fishing community that they are not causing environmental or economic harm.”

Markey has announced a plan to use funds from wind lease sales to establish a national compensation fund, though the legislation has not yet been filed. Markey’s office has received technical assistance from BOEM and NOAA in drafting the bill. “The long-term success of the offshore wind industry will depend on its ability to coexist not only with marine life but with the economic life of our commonwealth, including ports, fisheries, eco-tourism, and more,” Rosemary Boeglin, spokesperson for Markey, said in a statement.

Even if a national fund is authorized, it won’t be easy to calculate the cumulative economic loss for commercial fisheries. The task is complicated by inconsistent research methods used by developers, a lack of long-term studies and BOEM’s failure to conduct a comprehensive analysis of offshore wind lease areas off the New England coast.

“We’re building this ship as we’re sailing it,” NMFS scientist Andrew Lipsky said last October at a conference on wind power. “When we don’t think through the science, we often get ourselves in trouble.”

This month, a nearly 400-page report released by BOEM, NMFS and a fishing industry group said that the proliferation of wind farms is likely to impede regulators from collecting on-site data on the health of fish stocks. The lack of such information will result in “greater uncertainty” and “lost revenue to commercial and recreational fishermen,” the report said.

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